Starmer committed to a “brownfield-first” approach to boost housing supply
Councils will be required to prioritise building on brownfield sites and poor-quality areas in the green belt, under plans announced this week by Sir Kier Starmer.
These areas, dubbed the “grey belt”, will need to have at least 50% affordable housing, with the Labour party ruling out building on “genuine nature spots” and requiring developers to provide improved green spaces in their plans.
Sir Keir said: “Labour supports brownfield-first policies. But we must be honest, we cannot build the homes Britain needs without also releasing some land currently classed as green belt.
“We’ll prioritise ugly, disused grey belt land, and set tough new conditions for releasing that land.
“Our golden rules will also ensure any grey belt development delivers affordable homes, new infrastructure and improved green spaces.”
The Conservatives said that the policies “ignore the concerns” of local people, adding: “Only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives will respect local communities building the right homes in the right places which has delivered one million homes over this Parliament and sticking to the plan to reduce inflation and get mortgage rates down to help first-time buyers.”
The Housing Forum welcomed the announcement.
It’s good to build on brownfield sites where practical, but we know these are not sufficient to meet needs.
Anna Clarke, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, The Housing FOrum
Many cities, such as London have a growing population and huge levels of housing need. But they are unable to grow outwards because of greenbelts which were drawn up over 70 years ago.
We would like to see a more strategic approach to the greenbelt, with local authorities and city regions encouraged to work together. Central government should support these ambitions and not try to lock down the boundaries of greenbelts in perpetuity.
The news comes as the Government admitted it would fail to hit the 180,000 homes targeted under the £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities confirmed it would soon announce its lowered target for the 2021-26 programme.
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